My daughter returning to HK - tax issues

Writing as a worried Mum - hopefully you can advise me so I can adviser daughter.

She worked in Hong Kong in 2000-2005. When she left, she left owing quite a large amount of income tax. Essentially she has never been in a position to pay anything back to the Hong Kong tax department. She is returning to Hong Kong for the first time in 8 years next month to attend a business course.

She has has her passport replaced in the UK so it has a new passport number and has no record of her HK visas etc. It is also a new style UK passport with the chip on it, unlike the one she used when living in Hong Kong. She is convinced that she will be fine to enter and leave as her passport is now different.

I am less than convinced.

Could someone advise me on what the likely repercussions are for her when she enters and/or leaves Hong Kong next month? Is she right about the change in passport? It has been 8 years after all.

If, as I suspect, she is likely to be identified and found out, can anyone make any suggestions on what we can do to contact the Hong Kong tax people before she arrives and perhaps come to an arrangement before she enters? I don't have the amount of money available to help pay it all off, and neither does she. But I could help contribute to perhaps an agreed monthly repayment?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Good question. First off I am not a lawyer but have dealt with the Tax Department on behalf of a friend in similar circumstances.


There is a possibility that her name will be flagged up by immigration as she enters or leaves HK. As her full name and date of birth may well be on record with the HK authorities, this could take some explaining. She could deny or come clean either way this could significantly delay her transit into or out of HK while facts get established. If they do establish that she has outstanding tax they could detain her - I know of cases of friends having to travel to the airport to pay the tax before the tax dodger is released. However this may or may not happen to your daughter.


On a positive front the Hong Kong Limitation Ordinance only allows for personal debts to be chased for 6 years (from the date your daughter defaulted) so it may have been written off but you would need to talk to a lawyer to confirm this and ascertain whether the Ordinance applies to tax authorities and it may still not stop immmigration from detaining your daughter.


In any event if your daughter plans on coming to HK I would suggest she has a contactable lawyer to help her through immigration if she gets flagged. Any claim may be contestable but this would take time to process. If you don't have a problem of getting drawn into this, if your daughter gets detained, you could offer to guarantee the outstanding amount, which may speed things along but is this something you would be prepared to do?


My friend dealt with the tax authorities proactively and pays off a certain amount monthly (0.01%), it did come with some strings but he can still come and go through HK unhindered. This route is probably too late for your daughter.


Good luck. Would like to know how this pans out. Also do a search within this forum the question has been raised before and it seems that tax dodgers have been able transit HK with no problem.

Curious......any update on this?

Hi worriedmom, I immigrated to Canada since 1993 but before then, I worked briefly in Hong Kong from 1991-1993. When I left, I haven't even received any notice of assessment from Inland Revenue. In 2012, when I returned for employment, the minute my employer activated an employment record, all the old records are dug out. I was asked to pay for a total of $80K but after some adjustment, I still owed them $40K. They do let you pay by monthly instalment though as long as you negotiated with them. Good luck